“The necessity-based expansion and contraction of residential units happens midair, so that the discriminative hierarchy of the land, where value is created by money, disappears.”

Gunsoo Shin, architectural critic

Imagine an apartment tower that expands — and downsizes
— to respond to our rapidly changing lifestyles. This
off-the-charts smart building design has won UB architecture
professor Jin Young Song first place in an international
competition to consider design in the “self-evolving
city.”

Song, assistant professor of architecture, conceived of
“Connected Living” based on his research on the
1960s Metabolism movement
and emerging prefabrication and robotics in manufacturing. The
proposal presents a series of interconnected towers that
self-construct and de-construct through embedded robots that
respond to their environment. The robots are integrated to the
building façade to modify, add and remove prefabricated
units when necessary, maximizing flexibility and supporting
sustainable residential culture.

The Self-Evolving City
Competition, organized by International Union of Architects
(UIA) of Seoul 2017, focused on themes of urban transition and
designs for a changing world, similar to how a brain adapts to a
changing environment. Using “schemes, cognitive maps and a
model of mental states to represent the self,” designers from
around the world were asked to conceive designs that can assess and
adapt to performative and environmental conditions.

Architectural critic Gunsoo Shin reviewed Song’s project:
“Individual architecture of the aesthetic dimension
disappears, and what remains is urban residence of the ethical
dimension,” he wrote in a published article. “The
necessity-based expansion and contraction of residential units
happens midair, so that the discriminative hierarchy of the land,
where value is created by money, disappears.”

“Connected Living” is on display in the SeMA (Seoul
Museum of Art) through Nov. 12, alongside the competition’s
other top finishers. At the museum, people can fold papers and
punch windows to make future apartments.

Song also received first place in the Laka Competition last year
with his project “Snapping
Façade,” built with the assistance of Jongmin
Shim, UB assistant professor of civil, structural, and
environmental engineering.